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Tuesday, 08 October 2024
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Written by D.G. Martin
Although North Carolina Bookwatch in no longer airing on PBS-NC people still ask what books are being featured. When I explain, they ask, “Well, what books would you be discussing. Here are three of my answers.
• “Charlotte, the Slugger, and Me: Coming-of-Age Story of a Southern City and Two Tenacious Brothers,” by Jack Claiborne*.
Jack Claiborne and his brother Slug were important characters in post-World War II Charlotte. They grew up poor. Both gained fame.
Jack, for his provocative columns and news stories for The Charlotte Observer. Slug, for his popular and profitable restaurants.
Until their father died, the boys grew up on a struggling family farm in southeastern Mecklenburg County. Then, in 1936, the family, moved into the Elizabeth section of Charlotte within walking distance of Elizabeth School, Piedmont Junior High School and Central High School.
Both thrived, Jack as a student and Slug as a popular student leader and athlete.
In 1941, as World War II approached, masses of soldiers gathered in Charlotte for training. As Jack and Slug were watching them pass, one of them called out “Hey boy. Where is a good place to eat around here?”
Slug shot back, “Here.”
“Within minutes,” Jack writes, “the Slugger had our living room lined two deep and soldiers waiting to get to our mother’s table.”
Their mother had a new way to make money.
It was the beginning of Slug’s food service empire.
Jack’s and Slug’s story is also a biography of Charlotte as it grew from a very small city in World War II to an important metropolitan center.
• “Boardinghouse Women: How Southern Keepers, Cooks, Nurses, Widows, and Runaways Shaped Modern America,” by UNC Chapel Hill professor Elizabeth Engelhardt*
Elizabeth Engelhardt has collected hundreds of stories about boarding houses similar to the one run by the mother of Jack and Slug Claiborne.
Engelhardt cites examples of how women escaped irrelevance and became accomplished and independent businesspeople as the owners and operators of boarding houses in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
One example, Julia Wolfe, ran the Old Kentucky Home boardinghouse in Asheville at the turn of the last century. The experiences in her boardinghouse helped inspire her son Thomas Wolfe’s novel, “Look Homeward Angel.”
Engelhardt has assembled scores of other examples where ambitious or desperate women struggled to make their businesses successful. She also shows how their boardinghouse experiences had an impact on the foods that we today call southern.
• “The Caretaker,” by Ron Rash*
“The Caretaker,” takes place in and around the mountain town of Blowing Rock in 1950 where Jacob Hamilton, an American soldier, wounded in the Korean War, has returned to recover.
Before he was drafted and sent to fight in Korea, Jacob had built a friendship with Blackburn Gant, the caretaker of a church graveyard.
Because of a severe bout with polio, Gant’s face became disfigured to the extent that people found it impossible to look at him. Jacob, however, had befriended Blackburn, and they established a firm friendship.
Jacob had also fallen in love with Naomi and married her.
Jacob’s parents never accepted Naomi and, in fact, had essentially disowned both Jacob and Naomi. Before he left for Korea, he begged his parents to help take care of Naomi while he was away. But they refused.
With Jacob in Korea, Blackburn became Naomi’s only friend.
As he recovered from his wounds, Jacob was anxious to return to Blowing Rock and to his new wife, Naomi, and their child who was growing in Naomi’s womb.
Before he arrived home, he learned from his parents that Naomi had died in childbirth and was buried in the church graveyard in a casket placed in the grave dug by his friend Blackburn.
But, with Naomi believed to be dead, Jacob found it impossible to settle into anything close to a happy life.
Ron Rash’s great story telling gifts give his readers a satisfying ending to Jacob’s struggle.
Editor’s Note: D.G. Martin, a retired lawyer, served as UNC-System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s North Carolina Bookwatch.
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Tuesday, 08 October 2024
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Written by Kathleen Ramsey
Charles Johnson and Ashley Owen walk the space of the ballroom at 1707 Owen Drive. This space used to be the ballroom for the Holiday Inn Bordeaux and is now Cape Fear Regional’s interim performance space — at least for the next two years. It will be the second “act” for the renovations at Cape Fear Regional. The Hotel, too, has seen many changes, going from a hotel space to now Good Homes Bordeaux, an upscale apartment complex. But some of the details from the past have been left behind.
Owen, Marketing Director for Cape Fear Regional Theatre, looks down at the golden pattern carpet and laughs. It was inherited, she admits.
“I will say people who have had events here love that the carpet is the same,” said Johnson, production manager for Cape Fear Regional Theatre.
Johnson tells stories of patrons coming through who have had old events in the space and love that there is history within the ballroom like a 20-something remembering an old ROTC ceremony or a 60-year-old with many memories in the space. The two have even come across a patron who was married in the ballroom.
“People have been having events in this space for decades. People will be excited to see how we’ve revamped it,” Owen says.
The folks at Cape Fear Regional Theatre are only about three or four weeks into renovating the space but already the risers for the main stage seating are up. The new space will have a more interactive or immersive feel for the audience much like they did with the production of Clue or Welcome to Arroyos. The risers cover three sides of the stage and there will be about 240 seats in total with “no bad seats,” says Johnson.
“We thought if we have to be in a temporary space, why not do something more exciting for our customers,” Johnson says, walking the outline of the risers. “It’ll be really fun. It’s in a thrust configuration which we haven’t really done before ... and we don’t have to sacrifice production value.”
The space will still have concessions and a waiting area to house all of those coming out for the production. And of course, Johnson laughs, there will be popcorn.
“It’s the number one question everyone is concerned about.”
Thankfully, Owen admits,
COVID-19 and 2020 helped prepare the team for doing things outside their facilities. During the pandemic, they held many productions in outdoor or open spaces like behind The Truck Stop. They would set everything up and tear it down each
day of performing.
“At least this is permanent. Lady Day [at Emerson’s Bar and Grill] we were moving stuff every single day,” she says.
The ballroom will also give the folks a large reception area, better parking, more bathrooms and even a covered drop off area for the rainy days. Elevators for handicap accessibility to the main stage will be available to theatre-goers.
The first show in the new space will be Puffs beginning October 31st. Johnson and his crew have been working non-stop even when the storms rolled through a couple weeks ago. They, and a local construction group, have been moving lumber from an entire semi-truck and all the lumber and materials in the new space had to be hand carried. Johnson makes a joke about his body feeling it and Owen quips that it’s giving him muscles.
“There’s always road bumps when you do something new,” Owen says. But overall, she and Johnson agree there are a lot of positives for the new space and they are excited for customers to come experience theatre in this way. They are also ready for the creative element this will give to the team for the upcoming productions. For them, having to perform in a different setting will give a refresh to their processes.
“It might be hard for us at first,” she says, “but I don’t think that will be reflected for the audience at all.”
For more information about the transformations at Cape Fear Regional Theatre, visit cfrt.org.
(Photo: The Cape Fear Regional Theatre’s new space, located at Good Homes Bordeaux, is currently being turned into the theatre’s new home. The seating around the stage will create a more intimate atmosphere. CFRT will be using Good Homes Bordeaux for two years while the current theatre undergoes extensive renovations. Photo by Kathleen Ramsey)
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